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DevConf.us: Being a Cynic in an Agile QA Role

Next month, the very first DevConf.us conference will launch at the Boston University in the historic city of Boston, USA. This annual, free, Red Hat-sponsored technology conference for community project and professional contributors to Free and Open Source technologies is an engineering conference organized by engineers.

As we get ready for the August 17-19 event, we have reached out to many of the speakers to find out what expertise they will be bringing to the Back Bay.

This interview features Deepak Koul, a Software Quality Enthusiast with Red Hat.

Q. Let’s open with the easy one: who are you and how did you get to where you professionally are today?

A. I am a quality engineer. Some 11 years ago when I joined a tech startup as an intern, I was asked whether I could join a product QE team to which I said “yes” and I have been writing tests and finding bugs since.

Q. Please tell us about your first experience with free/open source software.

A. In 2007, test automation world was still under the full control of proprietary tools like QTP, TestPartner, etc. One day one of my friends introduced me to Selenium, which was an open source tool to test web pages. I was awestruck with the kind of community support this tool had and kind of flexibility it gave to its users.

Q. Without giving too much away, what can attendees expect from your presentation “Cynic–Missing Role in an Agile Team”?

A. I will be discussing the pitfalls of doing the QA job in a close-knit agile team and how we, at customer platforms, found a way out using a new QE role we called “Cynic.”

About Brian Proffitt

Brian Proffitt is a Senior Principal Community Architect for Open Source and Standards team at Red Hat, responsible for community content, onboarding, and open source consulting. A former technology journalist, Brian is also a graduate lecturer at the University of Notre Dame. Follow him on Twitter @TheTechScribe